Satyender Jain PMLA case: Delhi HC notice to ED on co-accused bail pleas
Dec 12, 2022
New Delhi [India], December 12 : The Delhi High Court on Monday issued notice to the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on bail petitions moved by Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain, co-accused of Delhi Minister Satyendar Jain in an alleged money laundering case.
All three are currently in judicial custody in the Tihar Jail.
The Bench of Justice Dinesh Kumar Sharma sought a response from the ED and listed the matter alongwith Satyender Jain's bail plea which is scheduled to come up for a hearing on December 20, 2022.
A few days back, Satyendar Jain had approached the same high court with a bail petition challenging a trial court order denying him bail in the money-laundering case. The Court has also issued notice to the Enforcement Directorate and fixed the matter for December 20, 2022.
While dismissing the bail plea of Satyender Jain, the trial court also rejected the bail petitions of Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain.
The Trial Court had said, it has prima facie come on record that applicants/accused Vaibhav Jain and Ankush Jain knowingly assisted co-accused Satyendar Kumar Jain in the concealment of proceeds of crime and by projecting the proceeds of crime to be untainted by claiming the proceeds of crime to be their unaccounted income under IDS, 2016 and hence, are prima facie guilty of the offence of money laundering as defined in Section 3 of the PMLA.
Satyender Jain was arrested on May 30, 2022, under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) by the Enforcement Directorate.
In his bail plea in Delhi High Court, Satyender Jain stated that the trial court Judge and ED gravely misread and misapplied the PMLA by identifying proceeds of crime solely on the basis of accommodations entries. That accommodation entries cannot itself lead to a punishable offence under PMLA.
The Rouse Avenue Court dismissed the bail petition and said that the accused Satyendar Kumar Jain had knowingly done such activities to obliterate the tracing of the source of ill-gotten money and accordingly, the proceeds of crime were layered through Kolkata-based entry operators in a way that its source was difficult to decipher.
Hence, the applicant/accused Satyendar Kumar Jain has prima facie indulged in the offence of money laundering of more than Rs 1 crore. Further, the offence of money laundering is a severe economic offence and the view of the Supreme Court with regard to economic offences is that they constitute a class apart and need to be visited with a different approach in the matter of bail, said the trial court.
Hence, the accused Satyendar Kumar Jain is not entitled to the benefit of bail regarding the twin conditions provided in Section 45 of the PMLA. The application of accused Satyendar Kumar Jain is dismissed, said Trial Court Judge Vikas Dhull.
